Professionally installed security and home automation systems have never been more visible than in the past two years, thanks to all those ads and yard signs from ADT, Comcast/Xfinity, AT&T Digital Life and others.
But the exposure to home technology is about to grow exponentially with new naming rights for the Utah Jazz arena. For the next 10 years it will be called the Vivint Smart Home Arena.
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The arena, which hosts about 1.8 million guests each year for basketball games, concerts and other events, will feature a “smart home experience” center, where visitors can interact with technology such as smart door locks, thermostats, surveillance cameras, Vivint’s new doorbell camera, lighting controls and of course home security — all of which can be monitored and controlled remotely via any mobile device.
The 19,911-seat facility previously was called the EnergySolutions Arena after the Utah-based nuclear-waste disposal company.
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The name change, effective immediately, will be visible throughout the facility, with Vivint Smart Home Arena being prominent on the exterior of the building, the lower panels of the center-hung scoreboard, all digital building signage and on the Utah Jazz basketball court. The venue’s naming transition to Vivint Smart Home Arena will occur throughout the end of 2015 as the building hosts marquee events beginning with the Garth Brooks World Tour on Oct. 29-31 and the Jazz home opener on Nov. 4.
Today you’d be hard-pressed to find any other stadiums even remotely related to home technology. San Francisco had Monster Park for many years, but I doubt anyone recognized an affiliation with the maker of cables, headphones and other consumer electronics products. (ESPN has the full list.)
The Houston Rockets had Compaq Center. The San Jose Sharks have HP Pavilion. There’s Philips Arena for the Atlanta Hawks (doubt they promote Philips Hue there) and RCA Dome in Indianapolis (does RCA still make consumer electronics products?). Minnesota has Target Center, Los Angeles has Staples Center and the Chicago White Sox play at U.S. Cellular Field, but I’m pretty sure none of them promote their home automation offerings there, such as Staples Connect and U.S. Cellular OnLook.
Whether the Utah stadium naming rights will help Vivint outside of the state, the publicity surrounding the “smart home arena” will surely help the home technology industry overall.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but typically companies pay between $1 million and $3 million per year for naming rights.
